


Once Home

by Lady_Katana4544



Category: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
Genre: American Sign Language, Gen, Sign Language, off screen character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 12:31:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2068254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Katana4544/pseuds/Lady_Katana4544
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two times Caesar has returned through the doorway of his First Home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Return To Once Home

**Author's Note:**

> Author notes: This first one is set between the first and second movies of the franchise reboot. Set about a month or so after the first movie.
> 
> Chapter Summary: In which Caesar returns to his first home and a friend follows.

Many months after leading the Apes to a new home in the mountains, he returns to a city that is strangely quiet and so unlike the lively city that he had led his brethren out of. It looks much the same, but still so very different from his memories of it.

Soon enough he's in the trees of the neighborhood where he grew up and standing in the open doorway of the house that he grew up in. Disturbing layers of dust as he remembers that Will wouldn't have allowed to be there. Carefully he steps through the house as dust falls and rises around him while memories flit through his mind.

There's a smell clinging to the house that he doesn't like as he makes his way up to the bedrooms and moves to the room that he remembers as his father's room. He spots the body on the bed before he's even entered the room, then he's on the bed before he even registers that he's entered the room and putting his forehead against the cold forehead of his human father and closes his eyes.

In his heart, he wonders where the woman who was close to his father is and if she is still alive.

He opens them again to a darker when a heavy hand latches onto his forearm, he can guess who it is just by glancing out the corner of his eye to see the orange fur and know that Maurice has followed him. Slowly he sits up on the bed and starts signing as the bigger ape gingerly sits on the floor to watch his signing.

_You followed me._

Slowly Maurice nods his head, he thinks there is a slight smile on his face, and starts signing in return.

_Of course I did. Wouldn't do Apes any good if we lost you to the humans. What is this place to you?_

“First home.”

Green eyes glint in the dim light of the night hour and he wonders if Maurice had already guessed as much when he followed him from the mountains.

_Him?_

_Father._

_What do you want done with his body?_

_Bury it. Bury it with our dead in the forest. Near the water._

_As you wish._

Together they gently wrap the body in sheets and Maurice gently carries it on his back as he leaves through the open front door. He follows the older Ape and stops in the doorway to take one last look around his old home before he leaves.

Perhaps this will be the last time he enters it.


	2. Return To The Old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Caesar unexpectedly returns to his first home with company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: Slight spoilers if you haven't seen the second movie yet
> 
> Author notes: Set during the second movie of the reboot, so spoilers if you haven't seen it yet.

The sun is high in the sky when they find the old house, now more overtaken by Nature than it had been when he had first visited it and found his father's body.

As they carry him through the doorway, he feels a stab of nostalgia and sadness in his heart as layers of dust and memories are disturbed within the old house. Perhaps in some part of his mind this is where he wants to die.

To die in the place where his father had died. To die with the memories of his early life in the house stirring to life around him. He wonders where his family is now, what happened to them after he fell from their home into water.

There's new smells now clinging to the house now that he slowly breathes in, as the humans struggle to get him into the house and lay him down on the old, dusty couch. He find that there is a sort of simple relief in him that the smell that had been in the house when he found his father's body. 

As he settles into the couch, he can hear the humans whispering over him as though they think that he is not listening to them. He turns his head away from them and doesn't watch as Malcolm departs through the old rotting doorway, behind his departure comes the sounds of the other humans moving around as they settle down to wait for the man's return. 

Turning his head slightly to watch them through lidded eyes and blinks his slowly dimming vision in an attempt to see clearly. In his mind, he finds himself wondering if he has passed through the old rotting doorway for the last time.


End file.
